President Biden on Thursday announced a new national strategy to address COVID-19, including a requirement that employers with over 100 employees must require proof of vaccination or produce a negative test result at least once a week.
“The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is developing a rule that will require all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated or require any workers who remain unvaccinated to produce a negative test result on at least a weekly basis before coming to work,” a White House summary of the plan stated. “OSHA will issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) to implement this requirement. This requirement will impact over 80 million workers in private sector businesses with 100+ employees.”
According to a Biden Administration official quoted in the Associated Press, violations of this requirement could result in fines of up to $14,000 per violation.
The plan also includes a requirement that employers provide paid time off for employees to receive vaccinations.
“To continue efforts to ensure that no worker loses a dollar of pay because they get vaccinated, OSHA is developing a rule that will require employers with more than 100 employees to provide paid time off for the time it takes for workers to get vaccinated or to recover if they are under the weather post-vaccination. This requirement will be implemented through the ETS,” the summary said.
The effective date of the above policies was not named in the announcement.
The plan further includes policy shifts and upcoming rulemaking on medical care, school openings, use of the Defense Production Act to make at-home tests available, booster shot availability, mask requirements during travel and increased penalties for noncompliance, an Executive Order making vaccine requirements for federal employees, and small business loan assistance.
